This week we have two presenters: Brian Mendis – International House Fraternitas Award. International House is a residential college of the University of Melbourne. It accommodates 265 students from Australia and from approximately 35 other countries. The Fraternitas Award is presented each year to an outstanding student from International House. Brian graduated in science from the University of Melbourne in 2014. In 2013 he received the Fraternitas Award from our Rotary Club.
David Jones – How Christchurch is recovering 3 years after the ‘quake David Jones is RCCMS’s very own resident Kiwi. He maintains business interests in NZ and frequently returns to his bach in the stunningly beautiful Marlborough Sounds. David and Sally have close friends and family in Christchurch and he will no doubt present a very personal view of the rebuilding and recovery in that beautiful city.
Eleven club members and spouses, plus four friends, achieved great results in their tenth annual day of volunteering in the grounds of Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre, Kew, on Saturday April 4, under the supervision of horticulturist Steve Wells.
The Rehabilitation Centre, part of the Austin Health network, houses stroke, spinal and acquired brain injury (ABI) patients. Steve Wells, started as a nurse at the ABI Unit but now works most of the time on improving the landscapes of various Austin campuses. 10 years ago, RCCMS connected with him via Lyn McBain, who was also working at the ABI Unit at the time.
The morning’s volunteers included Lyn McBain and Pippa Thornton. Lyn, Pippa and Marjorie Gerlinger also produced morning tea and lunch. The visitors were RC Melbourne President Keith McNeil, with two others from his club, and Ted Pitts, a friend of our President Doug.
Everyone toiled from 8.30 to noon. Roger Thornton says they revamped the whole garden in the front reception area. They pulled out a golden diosma forest and cleaned out cannas and replanted much new shrubbery and two olive trees. Most of the re-plants had been generated on-site. Finally, the garden beds were fertilised and covered in a thick layer of mulch.
Another very satisfying working bee completed.
President Doug welcomed guests Rob Lawson (whose work area is IT-related) and Rob Hines (who has worked recently as a non-Executive Director in the racing industry). He also introduced the guest speaker Mr Tom Trumble.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Frank O'Brien reminded us of DIK working bees coming soon.
Roy Garrett showed us some new pictures that had just arrived from our school-room project.
Greg Cuthbert advised us of a fund raising dinner at the Garrett's on Saturday 3rd May 2014, with places still available.
President Doug Robertson conned us all -- reprehensible, but then what was the date of the meeting?
SERGEANT’S SESSION led by Michael Bromby. Mary Voice told an outrageous story in which climatologists were unprepared for a tropical cyclone (AS IF!!!!!!!!!!) Would she lie to you? She did. Richard Stone took our epic poem on another amazing journey -- to the other side of the world. Crikey Richard!!!
GUEST SPEAKER
Tom Trumble: Rescue at 2100 Hours (the title of Tom's book)
Tom gave us a gripping account of how Bryan Rofe (his grandfather) led a group of Australian airmen in a daring escape from West Timor during WWII. When Tom decided to research and write about what happened to Bryan in Timor, he uncovered an extraordinary story which was largely unknown.
Tom set the stage with a very strategic description of the SE Asian political geography as at the start of WWII, and then as it had changed by February 1942. He thus demonstrated the strategic position of the Penfui airstrip at the western end of Timor island.
A group of airmen, led by Bryan, were left behind near Penfui, when the Japanese bombed successive north to south locations including Darwin and Broome. For almost two months they endured extreme hardship, illness and the loss of many men. Their eventual rescue ..... was it by the US Navy? Get the book to find out, it was, it seems one of the war’s most daring rescues.
Tom also paid tribute to the local villagers who fed, sheltered and hid the RAAF party, as well as many other allied servicemen. In the case of the Bryan Rofe party, he particularly mentioned the courageous Mr Jermais Koanfora. During his talk, Tom showed his admiration for the courage of his grandfather and the other men.
Our April 1 speaker Tom Trumble’s grandfather Bryan Rofe had a distinguished post-war career following his wartime rescue from Timor.
When Tom Trumble put Bryan’s photo on the screen, it jogged the memory of Mary Voice. Mary joined the Bureau as a base-level meteorologist about 1970 and remembers Bryan fleetingly as visiting the research and development areas of the Bureau, where discussions went on about improving upper air observations in the Southern Hemisphere.
Tom also mentioned the Bureau’s former Carlton building “Frosterley”. Mary is still a member of the Frosterley Club of retired Bureau people. She says this club was started long ago as a way to maintain bonds between wartime meteorologists. Mary retired a decade ago from the Bureau as head of the National Climate Centre.
An obituary of Bryan, who died in 1971, says:
In 1947, Bryan joined the Weapons Research establishment of the Department of Supply and was stationed at Salisbury in South Australia. He initiated and organised a program of upper atmosphere meteorological research using a wide variety of meteorological rockets. His group developed the highly successful "Kookaburra" meteorological sounding rocket together with the meteorological sensors it contained. This work involved rocket trials at Woomera where he worked closely with George Trefry who was OIC of the Bureau's Meteorological Office at that time.Bryan was appointed Director of the Antarctic Division in August 1970, and accompanied the expedition to Mawson and Davis in the 1970/71 summer.
Tony Thomas will be mentioning Australia’s wartime Timor activities in his talk at the Savage Club on Wednesday on Hal Colebatch’s book, Australia’s Secret War. The book covers Australia’s 6m working days lost directly through wartime strikes, especially on the waterfront and coal fields. Colebatch analyses go-slows and stoppages at the crowded Darwin wharf just before the Feb 19, 1942, raid on the town from 242 carrier aircraft, which sank or damaged 23 ships caught in the congestion there. The raid also did for the planes intended for the rescue of Rofe’s Timor party. Since publication, amazingly, Colebatch has unearthed from a unit history of the 2/15 Battalion, this account from Bandmaster Norman Henstridge:
“While at the POW Cage at Benghazi, Norm was approached by an Afrika Corps officer who said, ‘Good day, Norm. How are you going?’ A startled Norm replied, ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’ The officer replied, ‘Don’t you remember drinking with me at the Don Hotel in Darwin? Do you remember the wharfies’ strike when you blokes [troops] unloaded the coal boat? Well, I was the bloke who organized the strike!’” (Quadrant, April 2014, p2)
Colebatch in his book had described how that 1940 strike threatened to cripple the Darwin power station and railway until troops, including senior officers, did the coal unloading. Angry troops later went to town and began wrecking the Trades Hall preparatory to setting fire to it, until stopped by officers.
Colebatch also describes an Australian seaman’s meeting at Darwin with remnants of the 2/2nd troops from Timor. The seaman wrote in his autobiography: “What could you say to walking skeletons, with dysentery so bad that watery shit ran down their legs as they walked, their big eyes that looked into your soul? Sores, scabs and war. Our hardships seemed like a Christmas holiday...I’ve wondered since what has happened to these heroic men and how did the nation repay them?”
Colebatch then notes how the seaman, George Stewart, immediately continued with an account of how he and his fellow-seamen on the steamship Time went on strike at Lucinda Point, Qld, over a trivial issue, “in the darkest years of the war”. They held up the ship for a month, stopping the entire port and causing 180 wharf workers to be idled. Stewart remarked, “We had fun ashore...the war was not so bad after all.” (p283-4) #
At the Rotary 9800 District Conference on the Gold Coast, the Rotary Club of Daylesford showcased the “E-Bed” (Emergency/Evacuation Bed). This is a project that is being developed in conjunction with the Daylesford Men’s Shed.
The bed is designed to increase people’s dignity, personal space and security under very difficult conditions.
Clubs are asked to assist in advancing the product to the next stage of development by pledging* (these are indicative only and will be used as a demonstration of interest to seek funding) a likely commitment if the project proceeds to production.
We are seeking your club's pledge based on a target price of $300 to $400 per bed. Clubs that are located in areas not prone to evacuations could indicate support for regional or a central pool of beds.
A coulis (left) and a raspberry coolie (right). You can note that they are quite distinct.
The Meal at the Garretts
Dear Editor,
I think you are doing a fantastic job as editor. However, you said in the previous bulletin that Annie Garrett served a raspberry coolie to guests at the re-union of the Laos school expedition. Did you by any chance mean a raspberry coulis? Best wishes, concerned RCCMS member.
The Editor replies:
Dear Concerned RCCMS member,
Thank you, I try my best in this (usually) thankless task. I do take care that everything in the bulletin is correct, including culinary matters.
Extracts from the Oxford English Dictionary are below, for your information.
coulis [koo-lee]
noun Disparaging and Offensive.
1.
an unskilled laborer, especially formerly in China and India.
2.
an unskilled laborer employed cheaply, especially one brought from Asia.
coolie (ˈkuːliː)
n
1. (Cookery) a thin purée of vegetables, fruit, etc, usually served as a sauce surrounding a dish
[C20: French, literally: purée]
This correspondence is now closed. Yours in Rotary, Editor.
A coulis (left) and a raspberry coolie (right). You can note that they are quite distinct.
